Night/Day Changes in Pineal Expression of >600 Genes
The pineal gland plays an essential role in vertebrate chronobiology by converting time into a hormonal signal, melatonin, which is always elevated at night. Here we have analyzed the rodent pineal transcriptome using Affymetrix GeneChip® technology to obtain a more complete description of pineal ce...
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| Published in: | The Journal of biological chemistry Vol. 284; no. 12; pp. 7606 - 7622 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier Inc
20-03-2009
American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | The pineal gland plays an essential role in vertebrate chronobiology by converting time into a hormonal signal, melatonin, which is always elevated at night. Here we have analyzed the rodent pineal transcriptome using Affymetrix GeneChip® technology to obtain a more complete description of pineal cell biology. The effort revealed that 604 genes (1,268 probe sets) with Entrez Gene identifiers are differentially expressed greater than 2-fold between midnight and mid-day (false discovery rate <0.20). Expression is greater at night in ∼70%. These findings were supported by the results of radiochemical in situ hybridization histology and quantitative real time-PCR studies. We also found that the regulatory mechanism controlling the night/day changes in the expression of most genes involves norepinephrine-cyclic AMP signaling. Comparison of the pineal gene expression profile with that in other tissues identified 334 genes (496 probe sets) that are expressed greater than 8-fold higher in the pineal gland relative to other tissues. Of these genes, 17% are expressed at similar levels in the retina, consistent with a common evolutionary origin of these tissues. Functional categorization of the highly expressed and/or night/day differentially expressed genes identified clusters that are markers of specialized functions, including the immune/inflammation response, melatonin synthesis, photodetection, thyroid hormone signaling, and diverse aspects of cellular signaling and cell biology. These studies produce a paradigm shift in our understanding of the 24-h dynamics of the pineal gland from one focused on melatonin synthesis to one including many cellular processes. |
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| Bibliography: | Present address: Laboratory of Molecular Neurophysiology, Dept. of Life Science, POSTECH, San 31 Hyoja-dong, Pohang, South Korea, 790-784. Supported by The Lundbeck Foundation, Danish Medical Research Council Grants 271-07-0412 and 271-06-0754, The Novo Nordisk Foundation, The Carlsberg Foundation, Fonden til Lægevidenskabens Fremme, and Simon Fougner Hartmanns Familiefond. Supported by Research Equipment Initiative Grant BB/D52503X/1 from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Present address: Institute of Molecular Medicine, New Delhi 110020, India. Present address: Science Policy Branch, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bethesda, MD 20892. Present address: OriGene Technologies Inc., 6 Taft Ct., Suite 100, Rockville, MD 20850. Present address: Dept. of Poultry Science, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843. This work was supported, in whole or in part, by the National Institutes of Health (NICHD, Intramural Research Program to M. J. B., S. L. C., J. K., Q. S., P. G., F. M., S. G., J. L. W., and D. C. K.; Center for Information Technology to Z. G. R. and P. J. M.). The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. Supported by NIMH P50 Conte Center Grant MH074924, NINDS Grant R01 NS054794, and Pennsylvania Commonwealth Health Research Formula funds. Present address: Dept. of Pharmacology and Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 421 Curie Blvd., Philadelphia, PA 19104. Present address: INSERM U413, Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Neuroendocrinology, European Institute for Peptide Research, University of Rouen, Mont-Saint-Aignan, France. Present address: INSERM U614, Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, Rouen, France. To whom correspondence should be addressed: 49 Convent Dr., Bldg. 49, Rm. 6A82, Bethesda, MD 20892-4510. Tel.: 301-496-6915; Fax: 301-480-3526; E-mail: kleind@mail.nih.gov. Note Added in Proof—The Sertoli cell data used for calculating median expression levels in experiment A were obtained from Ref. 126. The on-line version of this article (available at http://www.jbc.org) contains supplemental Procedures, Tables S1–S8, and Figs. S1 and S2. Supported by The Wellcome Trust. |
| ISSN: | 0021-9258 1083-351X |
| DOI: | 10.1074/jbc.M808394200 |